Prior to taking this course, my first instinct in approaching an issue as immense and all-encompassing as the Anthropocene was to look anywhere but inward. I was under the impression that an issue as complex as our changing climate and degrading Earth strictly required stark scientific objectivity. Viewing the Anthropocene through a scientific lens granted the issue irrefutable credibility, and thus, I believed that a scientific lens would also lead us to feasible and effective solutions.
Yet through our various contemplative practices and course readings, I quickly realized that our modern conceptions of science paint a vastly incomplete picture of what a suffering Earth truly entails. To understand our Earth, we must transcend our scientific compartmentalization of the planet into its respective compositional elements and understand it as a living, breathing system on which we, as human beings, are inherently dependent. Within Active Hope, Macy and Johnstone feature a poem by D.H. Lawrence that underscores this inherent importance of transcending such scientific compartmentalization:
“Water is H2O,
Hydrogen two parts
Oxygen one
But there is also a third thing that makes it water
And nobody knows what it is.”
We understand what water is by recognizing how we interact and depend upon it. As a tangible substance that we consume daily, our inherent connection to water is seemingly less abstract, and thus, we define ourselves as living beings that require it to live. This same recognition of our inherent dependence on water can and should be applied to our Earth. Gaia not only gives us water; it gives us life. As humans, our ability to live is contingent upon our ability to partake in a relationship of reciprocity with our planet. Thus, as we attempt to face the growing issue of climate change and other manifestations of a planet in peril, we must be mindful of how we can best honor and preserve our symbiotic ties to the exact living, breathing system that allowed our being in the first place. When we recognize our intrinsic reliance on our planet for both life and identity, we can better understand its suffering and the means by which we can ease it.
Earth is our planet,
70 percent is water
30 percent is land
But there is also a third thing that makes it Earth
And we know what it is:
Our home
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